Sounds very interesting!If you're having doubts, it sounds like it might be quite quick anyway so wynaut jump in for funsies?The only thing is that I don't think letting us choose our roles will go smoothly. I mean, there will be people asking for the same role and I could take ages to get one to each player. Could work though, I'm up trying it if you're set on that.

Edit; just noticed what you said about alphabetical role giving. Wouldn't we be able to use that to hazard a vague guess at which role a player has?

@Aboi: I'll RNG the roles then. It was more an idea I was toying with; surprisingly few people actually sent me a PM eitherway (only 2), so I guess there aren't any particular roles that people want eitherway. The idea stemmed from Link mentioning that he had been Mafia for 4 out of the last 6 games, and I wanted people to get the chance to opt out of playstyles that they don't enjoy/had played too much recently.Now the idea behind town being weaker was that the game ends R6 unless the staller has been killed. Ergo it's Mafia and the other neutral's top priority to kill the staller before focusing on a town victory. Town also begin the game with a free R0 (that is to say an entire round of actions) so they get a headstart information-wise. Furthermore, the town have a lot of bulletproof roles/roles that can screw with Mafia. The Vengeful can take down one of Mafia pretty early if they get unlucky, and town also have 2 vigilantes (though one has less control over who he kills).The main issue was the the game was designed for 15 with an extra two townies vote townies and a double voter traitor to act as extra meatshields in the game, but I was curious to see how it'd work without them [I know that there's technically another day for signups, but I doubt that anyone else will join].

@Cael: yeah you make a valid point regarding the Vig and Vengeful possibly triggering a R2 victory for Mafia. Depending on how they play out, the game can either remain balanced or go horribly bad for town R1. It all depends on how sensible the vig is, and whether the vengeful hits his intended target. I added a lot of death protection (6 players technically, one who might get a kill on Mafia if they get unlucky) to try and stall out the game, but it might not be enough. Then again the odds of a lynch and kill on two power roles exists even in vanilla (where the lack of power roles puts town in an even more dire situation).

@Zink: The rolelist on my spreadsheet isn't in the same order as the one that I posted here. So you guy could attempt to hazzard a guess, but you'd be wrong. That said, I'll be RNGing the entire set because the idea isn't popular.

Anyway the main issue is that even with 12 players (11 now) I'm pushing the ideal 4:1 town/mafia ratio beyond its limits. Particularly with the inclusion of two Neutral roles. The game was intended to play as collab between Mafia and Town against the neuts, and then backstabbing each other into the traditional Mafia vs Town setup. I wanted to host something a bit different (like in my last game) but I'm beginning to doubt this setup in its current form. I think I've gone overboard with the strong roles, but am still quite curious to see how the setup would work. I was hoping it would become like a puzzle, with everyone trading information via the Santa Clause role, and Santa Clause piecing together the puzzle between the Lynch tally and the role claims. However the issue stems that without the 3 meatshields (2 vote orientated townies, and a traitor role) that I removed from the game, the game can end prematurely and it does skewer the lynch strongly in Mafia's favour.

I'll first go ahead and say that, if I'm the only one making a fuss about the non-RNG roles, then don't change it. It makes me feel like a shitty person when somebody has a good idea but it's changed by one opposing mind. If it wasn't such a high-powerlevel game, it actually sounds like a pretty good idea. Just don't drop a pretty large idea just so one person would play, and you can probably blame it on bad post time, it was 10 pm (here) when you posted that people can ask for roles. Just don't scrap a good idea for only me.

It's not that you're making a fuss, it's that the vast majority aren't even asking for roles (I only got 1 request for an actual role, and 1 request for a flavour role) thereby making the entire proposal feel a bit redundant. I may as well just do it as normal.As for scrapping it, it's not your fault Aboi. I was stretching my initial concept pretty thinly for only 12 players. (the game seemed only moderately balanced with 15; removing 2 townies and 1 pseudo Mafia really works against the Town)Just glad that I got the feedback before running the actual thing. Given how well my first game turned out, I didn't want a poorly executed new concept to kill my joy of hosting. The game in its current would definitely require a fair degree of active involvement to be aware of what's going and to prevent any early-game defeats. I'm wondering what you guys would think of running the setup with townies replacing the neuts? It'll definitely even out the numbers, but I'd be inclined to remove the Round 0 in that case. Otherwise I might resort to swapping to a closed-vanilla'esque set.

I'd be fine with the neutrals being removed and the round 0 not happening. The neutrals tipped the overall balance too far away from the town. Plus, I don't like the idea of the staller in general. The only real problem I see with removing them is that it also takes away all roleblockers (unless I missed something).

EDIT: Well, the vig has that one time power after round 3, I suppose.

EDIT 2: Cael does raise a valid point. Actually, could you take out the ballet box but leave in the troll third party instead of taking out both of the neutrals? That looks like the best compromise to me.

Last edited by Link Lab on Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

French Connections wrote:@Cael: yeah you make a valid point regarding the Vig and Vengeful possibly triggering a R2 victory for Mafia. Depending on how they play out, the game can either remain balanced or go horribly bad for town R1. It all depends on how sensible the vig is, and whether the vengeful hits his intended target. I added a lot of death protection (6 players technically, one who might get a kill on Mafia if they get unlucky) to try and stall out the game, but it might not be enough. Then again the odds of a lynch and kill on two power roles exists even in vanilla (where the lack of power roles puts town in an even more dire situation).

Also, the Russian Ballot Box is kinda redundant, and the biggest problem here as I see it. His abilities are either >double voting (+1 mafia vote)>changing a townie's vote (+1/-1). (with really no reason for him to simply steal votes every turn)>And for a single round he can do both (+2/-1).

Over all, this effectively makes the single role worth three people normally, for a five person mafia in a game of 11 people. And past Round 3 they have the power to utterly clinch any sort of ly/lo. Only lynch-prevention or killing him will give the Town (and by far the Staller) any chance.

The whole Vig/Veng deal was just speculation of by far the worst-case-scenario to provide as an example. I still expect the mafia, as is, to be decided (if not won) by round 4... is this commentary on Surrendering at 20?

@ Cael: The idea behind stealing the votes was if he wanted to avoid being suspicious. The Mafia team in The Boondocks round used the ability quite well. However given the smaller player base this game, the role is definitely too strong.

@Link, the main issue I have with leaving the neut but removing the ballot box is that the neut in his current format would be pretty useless without the other neut to interfere with gameplay. That said, I'll rework him if you guys are cool with a 8/2/1 setup (or 9/2/1 if Aboi is still in).

Balancing the game around an open role-set really proved to be too hard for me. By removing the threat of 3rd parties and fiddling with the numbers, Town gained too much of an advantage. Quite a few roles could essentially end the game prematurely (lucky vig kill, vengeful kill, etc...) and town could figure out the identity of Mafia and the Neut quite quickly (without the lynch-proof neut, town could safely claim R1 without fear of someone stealing their role). I thought about adding a gag-order round 1 on role-reveals, allowing Mafia to steal 2 identities (provided they didn't get hit by the vengeful R1). This would give Mafia an advantage, but screw with the Neutral (who was Town's best hope of finding out how many Mafia were still in the game). Finally, I thought of revealing roles from R3 onwards (giving Mafia a small edge, but not quite keeping town in the dark) but that kind of defeated the purpose of using an open set in the first place. Then I realised: if I'm removing the Staller role (the main reason that I wanted to run it as an open game) and thinking about revealing roles, then surely that defeated the purpose of running an open game.Tl;dr: open role-sets require a lot of vanilla roles in order to be balanced otherwise the odds of killing a crucial role R1 are too high. Switching to a heavily edited closed set with role reveals on death. I'll give more information on game mechanics when the game begins.

Phreak: Well as expected, Leblanc and Renekton have been banned by the Demacian alliance.Rivington: She wasn't well received by Halolzian summoners. One source stated that "she's too imba to be my waifu". As for Renekton, his lynch and kill immunity really went against the current meta. Not many Summoners enjoy playing against him.Phreak: Nonetheless, we're playing on patch 1.1, so a lot of the issues with game imbalances from last round have been removed.Rivington: An interesting pick by Noxus, definitely a set of unconventional picks. Obviously they seem to be going for a Bruiser setup. No jungler either, just what are they planning?Phreak: Well given the 4 against 9 setup, it's only natural for them to pick tanky champions. This game is heavily stacked against Noxus.Rivington: Well we've seen Noxus pull off some spectacular comebacks in worse situations Phreak, especially under Swain's tactical leadership. Phreak: Yeah you said it Riv, even with their current Handicap, I still expect Noxus to deal tons of damage. Well there we have it, the Summoners are getting ready to lead their champions into the Rift.Rivington: I'm excited to see how this one turns out Phreak.